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A  UTHOR : 


HAVERFIELD,  FRANCIS 
JOHN 


TITLE: 


SOME  ROMAN 
CONCEPTIONS  OF 

PLACE: 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS 

DA  TE : 

[1916] 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC  MICROFORM  TARHFT 


Master  Negative  # 


Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


r  874 ,06 

I  H299 


Haverjfleld,  Francis  John,  1860-1919. 

...  Some  Roman  conceptions  of  empire,  by  F.  Haver- 
1916"*     Cambridge,  Prmted  at  the  University  press    ' 

ClaTS^ssi^^^^^^^  2^^'"     (Occasional  publications  of  the 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


Library  of  Congress 


16-17918 


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In  the  summer  of  1915*J^rof«  ^Yr^^^  R6i)er4  of  ihe  GlMsical  Association 
and  of  Leeds  University,  askecl  \ah  to  rfead  a 'paper  to  the  Leeds  Branch 
of  the  Association  in  January  1916.  I  agreed,  and  it  was  decided  that  I 
should  use  a  paper  read  by  me  in  May  1915  as  President  of  the  Society 
for  Roman  Studies,  at  that  Society's  annual  meeting,  but  not  pubUshed 
in  its  Journal.  An  iUness,  which  has  made  me  incapable  of  serious 
work  after  Christmas  1915  till  now,  prevented  my  reading  the  MS.  myself 
to  the  meeting  on  January  19,  and  has  also  hindered  my  full  revision 
of  it  for  its  present  pubUcation.  I  trust  my  readers  wiU  pardon  any 
defects.  For  the  two  plates,  I  am  indebted  to  the  liberahty  of 
Messrs  G.  Duckworth,  publishers  of  Mrs  Strong's  most  admirable  volume 
on  Roman  Sculpture. — F.  H. 


I 
I 


Clas3.  Assoc.  Papers,  No.  4 


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Kindly  .lent  hy  Messi's  Duckvortfi,  London 

Fig.  1.     DETAIL  OF  ARA  PACIS  (p.  11),  west  wall. 
From  Mrs  Strong's  Roman  Sculpture  (Plate  XVI) 


SOME  ROMAN  CONCEPTIONS  OF  EMPIRE 

War  at  all  times  deters  or  diverts  scholars  from  learned 
labours.  It  calls  the  younger  men  to  the  paramount  duty 
of  national  defence.  It  destroys  the  confidence  and  quiet  of 
the  elder  men.  It  makes  research  seem  valueless,  and  unreal 
beside  its  own  realities.  In  my  own  University  of  Oxford, 
of  the  twenty  men  or  so  who  lately  taught  one  branch  or 
another  of  ancient  history,  every  one  of  military  age  and 
capacity  has  long  ago  left  us.  We,  the  elders,  remain  to  carry 
on  the  work.     Shall  we  carry  it  on  "as  usual"? 

I  read  somewhere  the  other  day  that  Great  Britain  is  not 
making  war  in  the  sense  that  Germany  or  that  France  is  making 
war — that  from  the  rising  till  the  setting  sun  every  man, 
woman  and  child  in  those  countries  thinks  of  nothing  else 
•save  how  to  destroy  the  enemy,  but  that  in  England  other 
pre-occupations  continue.  If  this  means  that,  in  France  and 
in  Germany,  there  is  ever  present,  to  almost  everyone,  the 
vivid  sense  of  national  danger  and  of  the  urgent  need  of  national 
effort,  that  is  true  of  England,  too.  I  was  not  long  ago  in  a  corner 
of  the  west  country,  where  Exmoor  hills  drop  to  a  harbourless 
coast — a  region  not  unlike  your  Robin  Hood's  Bay  and  Stainton 
Dale.  In  the  remote  and  hidden  valley  where  I  lodged,  there 
was  little  outward  sign  of  war.  But  those  who  cared  to  look 
closely  saw  that  nearly  every  man  of  military  age  had  gone 
to  fight  and  that  to  those  who  had  stayed  at  home,— the  young, 
the  old,  the  women, — the  war  formed  a  deep  and  terrible 
background  to  their  lives.  They  did  not  talk  of  it :  for  better 
or  worse,  Englishmen  seldom  say  all  they  feel,  just  as  they 
seldom  say  all  that  they  know.  They  went  on  with  their  lives 
as  usual,  and  yet — not  as  usual. 

1—2 


kN&i-i 


Kii'illii  l,}if  l,n  3/' .<■<>•>■  Ihieki'-ortli,  Loinlon 


Fig.   1.     DETAIL  OF  ARA  PACIS  (p.   II).  west  wall. 
From  Mrs  Strong's  Roman  Sculi/ftirt   (Plate  X\'J) 


%1-h.oL 


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SOME   ROMAN  COXCEPTIOXS  OF  EMPIRE 

War  at  all  tiines  deters  or  diverts  scholars  from  learned 
labours.  It  calls  the  younger  men  to  the  paramount  duty 
of  national  defence.  It  destroys  the  confidence  and  quiet  of 
the  elder  men.  It  makes  research  seem  valueless,  and  unreal 
beside  its  own  realities.  In  my  own  University  of  Oxford, 
of  the  twenty  men  or  so  who  lately  taught  one  branch  or 
another  of  ancient  history,  every  one  of  military  age  and 
capacity  has  long  ago  left  us.  We,  the  elders,  remain  to  carry 
on  the  work.     Shall  we  cany  it  on  "as  usual"? 

I  read  somewhere  the  other  day  that  Great  Britain  is  not 
making  war  in  the  sense  that  Germany  or  that  France  is  making 
war— that  from  the  rising  till  the  setting  sun  every  man, 
woman  and  child  in  those  countries  thinks  of  nothing  else 
save  how  to  destroy  the  enemy,  but  that  in  England  other 
pre-occupations  continue.  If  this  means  that,  in  France  and 
in  Germajiv,  there  is  ever  present,  to  almost  everyone,  the 
vivid  sense  of  national  danger  and  of  the  urgent  need  of  national 
effort,  that  is  true  of  England,  too.  I  was  not  long  ago  in  a  corner 
of  the  west  countrv,  where  Exmoor  hills  drop  to  a  harbourless 
coast — a  region  not  unlike  your  Robin  Hood's  Bay  and  Stainton 
Dale.  In  the  remote  and  hidden  valley  where  I  lodged,  there 
was  little  outward  sign  of  war.  But  those  who  cared  to  look 
closely  saw  that  nearly  every  man  of  military  age  had  gone 
to  fight  and  that  to  those  who  had  stayed  at  home,— the  young, 
the  old,  the  women,— the  war  formed  a  deep  and  terrible 
background  to  their  lives.  They  did  not  talk  of  it :  for  better 
or  worse.  Englishmen  seldom  say  all  they  feel,  just  as  they 
seldom  say  all  that  they  know.  They  went  on  with  their  lives 
as  usual,  and  yet — not  as  usual. 

1—2 


2  SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 

I  cannot  help  thinking  that  some  of  us  in  England  have 
taken  an  unwise  line  in  this  matter.  There  have  been  demands 
for  small  economies  in  every  expenditure  not  bearing  directly 
on  the  war.  The  Treasury  has  wanted  not  merely  to  curtail 
but  to  shut  up  the  work  of  the  Ordnance  Survey  in  Southampton, 
of  the  Reading  Room  in  the  British  Museum,  and  so  forth, 
and  excavations  have  been  suspended  through  the  country. 
The  total  saving  effected  by  these  steps,  happily  only  carried  out 
in  part,  has  been  comparatively  small,  a  tiny  drop  beside  the 
vast  war  expenditure,  but  the  harm  done  might  in  some  cases 
have  been  serious.  When,  after  considerable  expense,  you  have 
formed  a  working  staff,  it  is  altogether  false  economy  to  scatter 
it,  and  to  go  through  all  the  initial  outlay  over  again.  More- 
over, the  effect  of  these  small  economies  on  the  opinion  of  the 
outside  world  (if  that  opinion  now  matters)  cannot  be  calculated. 
If  it  be  announced  in  neutral  countries  that  Great  Britain 
cannot  afford  two  or  three  hundred  pounds  to  continue  an 
important  work  of  learning,  that  will  not  benefit  the  British 
exchange  in  foreign  money  markets.  We  act  like  retail 
dealers. 

From  this  point  of  view  I  rather  regret  that  it  has  not  been 
thought  possible  to  continue  next  summer  at  Slack  the  excava- 
tions of  the  last  two  years,  carried  out  by  the  University  of 
Leeds  and  the  Yorkshire  Archaeologists.  These  excavations 
were  well  carried  out  and  their  results  were  historically  inter- 
esting and  important;  one  is  loath  to  see  them  suspended. 
I  am  aware,  however,  that  in  this  case  difficulties  intrude 
which  are  quite  apart  from  any  question  of  money,  such  as 
it  may  not  be  possible  to  overcome^. 

This  is  not  w^hat  our  allies,  the  French,  and,  as  I 
believe,  our  enemies,  the  Germans,  also  have  done.  For  all 
their  patriotism,  the  serious  work  of  those  countries  which  is 
not  warlike  has  not  been  utterly  forgotten ;  the  threads  of 
their  intellectual  life  have  not  been  wholly  sundered;   in  duly 

^  Indeed  the  sum  needed  for  another  season's  work  at  Slack  is  quite 
small — much  smaller  than  the  whole  £400  which  was  (one  hears)  to  have 
been  saved  by  closing  the  Scottish  museums — a  measure  happily  never 
carried  out. 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE  3 

limited  form,  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  the  country's 
needs,  education  and  learned  research  are  still  followed  by 
those  of  them  who  are  too  old  to  fight  and  who  cannot  help 
as  soldiers.  And  this  is  right.  If  research  is  worth  anything, 
if  (to  take  my  own  case)  "Roman  Studies"  have  real  value, 
it  does  not  seem  desirable  or  necessary  to  drop  all  intellectual 
work  on  them,  save  in  the  direst  need.  Therefore,  as  I  hold, 
we  and  societies  like  ours  do  well  to  continue,  within  due  limits, 
our  more  serious  intellectual  activity,  issuing  our  publications 
and  holding  at  least  our  regular  meetings.  During  the  long 
period  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  a  hundred  years  ago,  research 
and  the  publication  of  the  results  of  research  went  on,  in  France 
and  in  England,  not  indeed  altogether  unlessened,  but  still 
with  real  vigour:  those  25  years  gave  us  and  France  some  of 
the  most  splendid  and  costly  of  our  great  local  histories  and 
local  studies^.     The  trouble  came  after  the  war  was  over— in 

1816-203. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  may  perhaps  at  our  meetings  prefer 
to  deal  with  topics  which  are  not  purely  learned,  which  combine 
ancient  and  modern  interests.  In  the  remarks  which  I  am 
about  to  offer,  I  wish  to  make  some  observations  on  certain 
aspects  of  the  Eoman  Empire,  to  which  I  have  recently  noted 
frequent  incidental  references  in  our  current  literature.  I  run 
the  risk  of  falling  into  generalities  which  may  seem  to  you 
trite  or  untrue,  or  both:    of  that  you  must  be  judges. 

2  I  refer  to  such  works  as  those  of  John  Carter  on  Architecture  (2  folios, 
1795-1816),  Gough's  enlargement  of  Camden,  in  4  foUos,  1789-1806,  the 
18  volumes  of  Britton  and  Brayley's  Beauties  of  England  and  Wales  (1801 
foil.),  the  4  great  quartos  of  S.  Lysons'  Reliquiae  Romano-britannicae  , 
(1813-17),  the  8  quartos  of  his  Magna  Britannia  (1806-22),  and  the  like, 
nearly  all  editions  de  luxe,  sumptuously  illustrated,  and  forming  most 
valuable  records  of  finds,  though  foreign  scholars,  like  Orelli,  in  the 
early  nineteenth  century  paid  little  heed  to  them.  Our  British  Universities 
had  Kttle  to  do  with  them ;  they  have  been,  indeed,  throughout  indifferent 
to  national  antiquities,  like  the  German  Universities  till  quite  recently. 

This  class  of  costly  archaeological  works,  compiled  for  the  most  part 
by  men  not  professed  scholars,  is  almost  confined  to  this  country,  to  France 
and  to  Spain. 

®  T.  E.  May,  Constit.  History,  Ch.  x. 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


5 


A  Similarity  between  the  Roman  Empire  and  the 

Nineteenth  Century 

I  am  aware  that  comparisons  between  ancient  and  modern 
things  are  difficult  and  often  profitless.  The  great  changes 
which  fell  upon  Europe  about  100  years  ago— the  vast  upheaval 
called  the  French  Kevolution  and  its  Napoleonic  outgrowth, 
the  rise  of  the  so-called  lower  classes,  the  huge  growth  of 
natural  science  and,  in  particular,  of  mechanics  and  chemistry — 
have  set  a  deep  historical  gulf  between  the  nineteenth  century 
and  all  preceding  ages.  "Greek,"  "Koman,"  "medieval," 
are  all  alike  "ancient  history"  to-day.  Ancient  history  now 
ends  about  Waterloo  Day,  1815.  The  tactics  of  Waterloo  are 
as  unlike  those  of  our  modern  battles  as  the  tactics  of  Plataea 
or  of  Marathon.  Human  nature  alone  remains  the  same  and, 
round  it,  history  is  continually  repeating  ever- varying  combina- 
tions. There  is,  however,  one  strong  likeness  between  the 
Koman  Empire  and  the  nineteenth  century,  which  might 
justify  a  lengthened  comparison.  Both  ages  were  ages  of  peace— 
the  one  lasting  for  four  centuries  (B.C.  31  to  about  a.d.  370), 
the  other  for  just  a  hundred  years  (a.d.  1815-1914).  We 
stand  to-day  as  the  Romans  near  the  end  of  the  Empire  stood 
—at  the  close  of  one  of  the  only  two  longish  periods  of  general 
peace  which  this  troubled  world  of  ours  has  yet  enjoyed.  We, 
like  the  Romans  of  the  early  fifth  century,  see  a  plain  reversal 
to  barbarism  over  much  of  the  civilized  world  around  us.  It 
may  be  worth  while  to  consider,  briefly,  a  few  of  the  ideas 
which— as  I  think— underlay  the  Roman  Empire,  and  to  compare 
them  with  those  underlying  our  own.  I  shall  not  of  course 
enter  into  questions  of  modern  controversy,  least  of  all  into 
questions  of  politics ;  that  would  not  be  fit  on  an  occasion  like 
the  present,  nor  would  it  be  seemly  in  a  paper  read  in  my 
absence.  My  views  must,  of  course,  occasionally  peep  through, 
and  you,  I  am  sure,  will  forgive  the  glimpses. 

We  know  what  the  Hundred  Years'  Peace  now  just  expired 
has  been  (1815-1914),  a  peace  broken  by  ci^  and  national 
wars  and  by  social  upheavals,  violent  indeed,^' but — like  some 


modern  explosives — violent  mainly  within  narrow  limits  of 
time  and  space.  The  peace  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  much 
the  same.  It  began,  like  the  nineteenth  century,  after  a  long 
period  of  storms.  The  Ciceronian  age,  which  immediately 
preceded  it,  was  indeed  as  unhappy  as  the  Napoleonic  and  it 
was  actually  longer.  Though  Cicero  himself  did  not  realize  it, 
his  lifetime  saw,  as  Mommsen  has  said,  the  bankruptcy — 
political,  moral  and  economic— of  the  antecedent  Graeco- 
Roman  civilization.  The  last  twenty  years  in  this  age 
(B.C.  48-28)  are  summed  up  by  Tacitus  as  pure  "anarchy"— 
continua  per  viginti  annos  discordia ;  non  mos,  non  ius  {Ann.,  iii. 

28). 

After  Leipzig  or  Waterloo,  after  1814  or  1815,  the  world 
craved  peace  as  eagerly  as  it  ever  did  after  Actium*.  When 
Augustus  restored  peace,  what  wonder  that  he  was  deified 
by  his  contemporaries?  The  wonder  rather  is  that  some 
modern  men  call  him  mediocre  and  second-rate.  For  his  work 
lasted;  for  four  hundred  years  from  Actium  (b.c.  31)  till  about 
A.D.  370,  the  civilized  world  had  something  like  peace.  Have 
we  an  Augustus  alive  to-day? 

This  then  was  the  primary  conception  which  the  Romans 
attached  to  Empire — peace.  It  is  perhaps,  at  first  thought, 
rather  surprising  that  it  was  not  till  well  within  the  earlier 
Empire,  till  writers  like  the  younger  Seneca,  the  elder  Pliny 
and  Tacitus,  that  the  phrase  "pax  Romana"  first  appears  in 
its  later  and  fullest  sense;  till  then,  pax  and  pacare  meant 
little  else  but  "conquest"  and  "to  conquer."  The  way  indeed 
to  this  rude  idea  of  "peace"  had   been   shown   by  Caesar's 

*  Even  H.  v.  Treitschke  {deutsche  Oeschichte,  i.  509)  closes  his  account 
of  the  battle  of  Lsipzig  with  an  eloquent  word  on  tie  misery  of  that  age: 
"Drau^sen  auf  dem  Schlaihtfelde  hielten  die  Aasgeier  ihren  Schmaus; 
es  wehrte  lan^e  bis  die  entflohenen  Bauern  in  die  verwiisteten  Dorfer 
heimkehrten,  und  die  Leichen  in  Massengrabern  verscharrten.  Unter 
solchen  Eleni  nahm  dies  Zeitalter  der  Kriege  vom  deutschen  Boden 
Abschied,  dis  f urchterUche  Zeit,  von  der  Arndt  sagte :  « dahin  woUte  es  fast 
mitjins  komm3n,  dass  es  endUch  nur  zwei  Menschenarten  gab,  Menschen- 
fregser  und  Gefressene ! '  Dem  Geschlechte,  das  solches  gesehen,  blieb  fur 
immer  ein  unausloschlicher  Abscheu  vor  dem  Kriege,  ein  tiefes,  fiir  minder 
heimgesuchte  Zeiten  fast  unverstandhches  Friedensbediirfniss." 


I 

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6  SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 

and  others'  use  of  pacare,  but  in  the  mouths  of  these  earlier 
men  that  word  was  an  euphemism,  not  a  statement  of  a 
political  theory, — so  Caesar  used  desiderare  of  "losing"  men 
in  battle  5. 

This  peace  of  the  early  Empire  was  a  real  peace,  broken 
here  and  there  by  explosions,  like  our  nineteenth  century. 
There  was  disorder  and  disaster  for  a  few  months  in  several 
lands  (in  May  68 — August  70  a.d.),  when  Nero,  the  last  and 
worst  of  the  lulio-Claudians,  fell  amidst  the  storms  which  his 
misrule  had  at  last  excited.  Worse  disaster  followed  when, 
near  the  close  of  the  second  century,  Commodus,  the  last  and 
(once  more)  the  worst  of  the  "Adoptive"  Emperors,  perished 
in  a  like  fate.  Longer  and  yet  greater  evil  followed  in  the  middle 
of  the  third  century.  Throughout  that  century  the  barbarians 
were  charging  in  ever-growing  multitudes  at  the  long  northern 
frontier  of  the  Empire,  that  stretched  from  the  North  Sea  to 
the  Euxine,  while  within  the  Empire  plague  went  to  and  fro, 
and  sedition  and  disloyalty,  born  of  these  double  evils,  spread 
through  the  ranks  alike  of  officers  and  of  soldiers.  In  the  main, 
the  inner  peace  of  the  Empire  was  none  the  less  upheld.  Nor 
was  there,  of  course,  ever  absolute  peace  on  the  frontiers. 
The  reign  of  Pius  was  chosen  by  Gibbon^  as  the  happiest  period 
in  Roman  and  in  human  history.  It  was  marked  by  many 
fierce  local  wars  and  disasters — in  Britain,  in  Africa,  in  Egypt, 
in  Judaea,  in  Armenia,  in  Greece,  and  on  the  Danube.  Within 
the  Empire  there  were  brigands  active  in  many  places — as 
every  reader  of  Lucian  and  of  Apuleius  will  remember. 

But  there  are  dacoits  in  India  under  the  British  rule; 
such  local  evils  mean  no  more  than  a  pimple  or  a  wart  on  a 
man,  disfiguring  him  but  not  typical  or  disastrous.  And  on 
the  other  side,  the  evidences  of  Roman  peace  are  many.  Let 
me  quote  just  two.     If  any  part  of  the  Roman  Empire  was 

^  Augustus,  of  course,  erected  in  B.C.  19  a  shrine  which  he  called  ara 
Pads  Augustae  (Mon.  Ancyr.,  cap.  xii.),  which  is  mentioned  on  coins. 
But  he  himself  issued  no  coins  with  the  legends  later  so  common  Pax 
aug{u8ta)  or  Pad  augustae:  he  seems  almost  alone  among  the  Emperors, 
save  for  Trajan,  in  having  avoided  or  neglected  this. 

*  Chap,  ii,  etc. 


SOME   ROMAN  CONCEPTIONS   OF  EMPIRE  7 

hard  to  police,  the  Atlantic  coasts  must  have  offered  peculiar 
problems.  Pirates  could  descend  upon  them  from  lands  out- 
side the  Empire,  from  Caledonia,  from  northern  Europe,  perhaps 
even  from  Morocco  and  from  the  never  quite  quiet  north  and 
north-west  of  Spain.  What  harm  Moorish  pirates  may  then 
have  wrought  on  the  coasts  of  southern  Spain  and  Portugal, 
there  is  hardly  enough  evidence  to  determine.  But  come 
further  north  to  Gaul  and  Britain,  and  a  fair  prospect  of  peace 
greets  us.  Here  the  country-houses  and  farms  of  well-to-do 
landowners  and  farmers  stand  close  to  the  shore  as  though 
no  seafaring  foe  threatened.  In  county  Glamorgan  on  the 
north  shore  of  the  Bristol  Channel,  scarce  a  mile  from  high- 
water  mark,  a  comfortable  country-house  with  good  mosaics, 
good  heating  apparatus,  looked  out  over  the  water  from 
Llantwit  Major.  In  the  end  it  was  destroyed — sacked  (as 
its  ruins  prove)  and  burnt — in  some  wild  midnight  raid,  but 
that  was  not  till  after  the  opening  of  the  fourth  century.  Till 
then,  at  any  rate,  the  Channel  must  have  been  clear  of  dangerous 
Irish  raiders.  So,  too,  on  the  south  coast.  At  Holcombe,  near 
Lyme  Regis,  in  a  sheltered  nook  behind  the  sea-cliffs,  a  house 
obviously  built  for  the  comfort  of  a  wealthy  family  lasted  on  till 
the  fourth  century'.  Further  east,  on  the  same  south  coast,  there 
were  houses  as  much  (or  more)  exposed,  on  the  edges  of  the 
Isle  of  Wight  and  the  littoral  of  Sussex.  Where  the  Queen's 
Hotel  now  stands  at  Eastbourne,  a  Roman  "villa"  stood  till 
the  same  late  date — so  near  the  sea  that  when  the  Hotel 
was  built  about  1848,  part  of  it  was  found  to  have  been  washed 
away  by  the  tides^.  Nor  was  the  east  coast  less  attractive 
to  peaceful  residents.  There  were  Roman  "  villas  "  near  Harwich 
and  at  Felixstowe  and  a  group  of  them  round  the  sinuous 
estuaries  of  Coin  and  Blackwater.  On  Mersea  Island,  a  little 
east  of  Colchester,  you  can — or  could  quite  lately — walk  to 
church   along   a   surviving  Roman  mosaic  pavement  almost 

'  Found  about  and  before  1872,  Archaeologiay  XL  v.  462  (compare 
Report  of  Devon  Assoc.,  xxiii.  82).  The  coins  include  Constans  and  Trajan, 
probably  Trajan  Decius.     The  site  can  still  be  traced. 

^  Philosophical  Transactions,  p.  351,  a  few  objects  in  the  Caldecott 
Museum  at  Eastbourne,  Sussex  Archaeological  Collections,  ii.  257. 

1—5 


8 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


9 


' 


within  the  spray  of  the  sea^.  Till  the  coming  of  the  fourth 
century  the  sea  must  have  been  as  safe  along  all  these  dangerous 
coasts  as  it  is  to-day. 

Were  I  addressing  an  audience  which  might  be  expected 
to  know  the  Atlantic  coasts  of  France  as  well  as  it  may  be 
expected  to  know  those  of  Britain,  I  could  quote  similar  evidence 
of  Koman  peace  from  Brittany  and  Normandy.  I  prefer  to 
turn  to  another  piece  of  evidence  illustrating  the  same  grip  of 
that  strong  Empire  at  a  later  date  and  on  a  land  frontier.  The 
Roman,  or,  as  he  might  be  more  justly  called,  Gallo-Eoman 
poet,  Ausonius  born  at  Bordeaux  spent  many  years  in  public 
service  at  Trier  on  the  Mosel,  in  the  second  half  of  the  fourth 
century.  The  land  of  his  inhabitation  on  the  Mosel  was,  like 
his  birth-land  on  the  Garonne,  a  rich  valley  set  with  vineyards, 
and  with  double  loyalty  he  sat  down  to  describe  it  in  rich- 
coloured  verse.  His  picture ^^  is  of  peace  and  plenty,  of  towns 
looking  forth  from  ancient  walls,  of  chateaux  overhanging 
river-banks,  of  wide  vineyards  full  of  merry  workers  singing 
at  their  tasks,  of  watermen  rowing  and  towing  great  barges 
(as  they  do  to-day)  along  the  swift  stream,  of  many  fishers 
with  net  or  line  or  rod,  of  watermills,  and  here  and  there 
a  quarry,  of  boat-races,  regattas  and  country-fairs,  of  a  rich, 
happy  and  populous  countryside,  of  a  river-god  who  can  be 
hailed:  Salve  magne  parens  frugiunqiie  viruntque.  Ausonius 
wrote  that  in  a.d.  371 :  the  actual  land  he  sang  of  was  hardly 
a  day's  gallop  from  the  Rhine  frontier:  but  he  has  scarcely 
five  lines  on  war  and  on  the  barbarian  inroads.  Thirty  years 
later  still,  in  400,  Claudian^^  praises  the  peace  even  of  the  Rhine — 
"you  could  not  tell  which  bank  was  Roman":  "the  Rhine 
was  as  prosperous  and  peaceful  as  the  Tiber  in  Italy"  and 
''  new  houses  clothed  its  banks."    He  shows  us  a  region  such  as 

»  Proceedings  of  the  Soc.  of  Antiq.,  xvi.  (1897),  422.  In  the  late  4th 
century  the  fort  of  Othona  was  built  close  by  and  indicates  need  for  defence 
at  that  date  hereabouts. 

^^  Mosella,  passim,  esp.  vv.  IGO  foil.,  200  (regattas),  240  foil,  (fishers), 
380,  etc.  A  convenient  ed.  is  by  C.  Hosius  (Marburg,  1894),  with 
notes. 

^^  See  de  cons.  Stilich.,  ii.  187,  etc. 


/ 


>4 


By  the  kindness  of  Messrs  Duckv:orth,  London 

Fig.  2.     DETAIL  OF  ARA  PACIS,  lower  frieze:  Therme  Museum,  Rome  (see  p.  11). 

From  Mrs  Strong's  Roman  Sculpture  (Plate  XVIII) 


8 


SOME    ROMAN    CONCEPTIONS    OF    EMPIRE 


SOME    ROMAN    CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


9 


within  the  spray  of  the  sea^.  Till  the  coming  of  the  fonrth 
century  the  sea  must  have  been  as  safe  along  all  these  dangerous 
coasts  as  it  is  to-day. 

Were  I  addressing  an  audience  which  might  be  expected 
to  know  the  Atlantic  coasts  of  France  as  well  as  it  may  be 
expected  to  know  those  of  J^ritain,  1  could  (juote  similar  evidence 
of  Roman  peace  from  Brittany  and  Normandy.  I  prefer  to 
turn  to  another  piece  of  evidence  illustrating  the  same  grip  of 
that  strong  Empire  at  a  later  date  and  on  a  land  frontier.  The 
Roman,  or,  as  he  might  be  more  justly  called,  (Jallo-Roman 
poet,  Ausonius  born  at  Bordeaux  spent  many  years  in  pubhc 
service  at  Trier  on  the  Mosel,  in  the  second  half  of  the  fourth 
century.  The  land  of  his  inhabitation  on  the  Mosel  was,  like 
his  birth-land  on  the  Garonne,  a  rich  valley  set  with  vineyards, 
and  with  double  loyalty  he  sat  down  to  describe  it  in  rich- 
coloured  verse.  His  picture ^^  is  of  peace  and  plenty,  of  towns 
looking  forth  from  ancient  walls,  of  chateaux  overhanging 
river-banks,  of  wide  vineyards  full  of  merry  workers  singing 
at  their  tasks,  of  watermen  rowing  and  towing  great  barges 
(as  they  do  to-day)  along  the  swift  stream,  of  many  fishers 
with  net  or  line  or  rod,  of  watermills,  and  here  and  there 
a  ((uarry,  of  boat-races,  regattas  and  country-fairs,  of  a  rich, 
happy  and  populous  countryside,  of  a  river-god  who  can  be 
hailed:  Sal  re  nnujne  pareits  j'rxijtuuque  ciruixqac.  Ausonius 
wrote  that  in  A.D.  371 :  the  actual  land  he  sang  of  was  hardly 
a  day's  gallop  from  the  Rhine  frontier:  but  he  has  scarcely 
five  lines  on  war  and  on  the  bar])arian  inroads.  Thirty  years 
later  still,  in  400,  Claudian^^  praises  the  peace  even  of  the  Rhine — 
''you  could  not  tell  which  bank  was  Roman'':  "the  Rhine 
was  as  prosperous  and  peaceful  as  the  Tiber  in  Italy"'  and 
''  new  houses  clothed  its  banks."     lie  shows  us  a  region  such  as 

»  Proceetlhigs  of  Ike  Soc.  of  Aitfi'/.,  xvi.  (1807),  422.  In  tlic  latf  4th 
century  the  fort  of  Othonu  was  built  close  by  and  inclieates  need  for  defence 
at  that  date  hereabouts. 

i«  Mosella,  passim,  esp.  vv.  100  foil.,  2(M)  (regattas),  240  foil,  (fishers), 
380,  etc.  A  convenient  eil.  is  by  C.  Hosius  (Marburg,  181)4),  with 
notes. 

"  See  de  cons.  Stilich.y  ii.  187,  etc. 


Lij  the  ki7i(hiess  of  Messrs  Duckv;orth,  London 

Fig.  2.     DETAIL  OF  ARA  PACTS,  lower  frieze:  Tliernic  Museum,  Rome  (sec  p.  11). 

From  Mrs  Strong's  Mornan  Sculptart  (Plate  XVlll) 


10 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


SOME   ROMAN    CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


11 


many  districts  were  in  northern  Gaul  down  to  the  latest  days 
of  the  Empire — such  as  many  districts  in  precisely  the  same 
land  were  till  ten  to  twelve  months  ago.  He  was  hardly 
dead  before  the  Empire  fell.  In  406  the  great  barbarian 
raid  burst  over  Gaul :  uno  fumavit  Gallia  tola  rogo^^,  and  the 
hillsides  that  he  had  praised  became  as  Louvain  and  Dinant 
are  to-day. 

Three  or  four  hundred  years'  peace — more  profound  and 
unbroken  in  some  provinces  than  in  others,  but  long  and  real 
in  all,  was  no  small  achievement.  It  suggests  the  question — 
how  was  it  done?  Many  writers  have  asked  why  the  Empire 
fell — no  one  has  asked  why  it  took  so  long  to  fall? 

Peace  alone,  after  all,  is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  Empire, 
not  an  imperial  ideal  of  much  originality  itself.  We  need  to 
know  what  further  conceptions  of  Empire  the  Roman 
Imperiahsts  had.  The  Romans  of  the  Republic  clearly  had 
no  definite  notions.  The  phrase  Roman  Imperiahsm  is  the  title 
of  a  stimulating  and  highly  suggestive  work  recently  issued 
about  the  Roman  Republic i^,  but  that  idea  found  no  place  in  the 
history  of  any  age  till  after  Cicero  was  dead.  Cicero  himself, 
for  all  his  philosophical  studies,  had  no  outlook  in  such  things. 
Caesar  doubtless  had,  but  he  never  put  it  into  written  system. 
As  a  rule,  we  are  referred  to  the  poets,  and  the  birth-song  of 
the  Empire  is  fomid  in  seven  lines  of  Vergil — those  lines  which 
conclude  the  great  muster-roll  of  Republican  heroes  which 
Anchises  unfolds  to  Aeneas  in  the  sixth  Aeneid: — 

Excudent  alii  spiiantia  inollius  aera, 

(credo  equideiu),  vivos  ducent  de  marmore  voltus, 

orabunt  causae  melius,  caelique  meatus 

describent  radio,  et  surgentia  sidera  dicent, 

tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  memento — 

hae  tibi  erunt  artes — pacisque  imponere  morem, 

parcere  subiectis  et  debellare  superbos.  (vi.  847-853.) 

They  are  perhaps  the  stateliest  hues  and  certainly  the  best 

12  Orient.,   Common.,   u.    184.     JSee    Classical    Review,   xix.    (1905), 
126-8. 

"  Tenney  Frank,  Roman  Imperialism  (New  York,  1914). 


known  that  even  Vergil  ev^r  wrote.  But  they  are  a  poor 
christening-hymn  for  a  nation.  It  is  often  said  of  Vergil,  that 
"all  later  Latin  hterature  and  thought  depend  on  him,"  that 
he  was  "not  only  the  interpreter  of  the  Rome  that  was  before 
him  but  the  guide  and  the  prophet  of  the  Rome  that  was  to 
be  after  him."  This  is  true,  but  only  in  small  part.  Vergil's 
proper  genius  lay  in  tenderer  and  more  delicate  emotions  than 
in  those  of  even  a  patriotic  politician;  that  subtle  observer 
of  nature,  that  profound  student  of  the  human  mind,  understood 
less  of  political  men  grouped  in  states  than  of  natural  human 
men  taken  one  by  one  in  the  rough.  And  here  he  presented  the 
rising  Empire  with  a  description  which  is  as  flat  in  thought  as 
it  is  matchless  in  expression.  Think  of  it.  Rome  was  not  to  care 
for  art^*,  for  oratory  or  for  science !  A  generation  which  had 
seen  fashioned  the  stately  sculptures  which  adorned  the  Ara 
Pacis^^  was  not  to  care  for  statuary.  A  generation,  for  whom 
were  written  the  Catilinarian  orations  and  the  Philippics,  was  to 
despise  oratory,  and  utterly  to  forget  Cicero.  Rule  by  sheer 
might  (imperio)  was  to  be  culture;  Rome  was  to  aim  at  a 
compulsory  peace — such  peace  as  Tacitus  damned  in  the  epi- 
gram "they  make  a  wilderness  and  call  it  peace";  then, 
she  was  to  spare — scornful  word — the  weak,  and  utterly  to 
crush  out  all  independence.  We  miss  the  horror  of  this  ideal 
by  importing  into  the  verses  notions  which  are  not  there, 
by  adding  to  "peace"  the  notions  of  civilization  and  de- 
velopment, to  "spare"  the  notions  of  tenderness  and  pity. 
Vergil  did  not  add  those  notions ;  he  set  forth  an  ideal  which 
would  be  rejected  to-day  even  by  our  modern  German  enemy, 
who,  after  all,  does  claim  that  he  is  fighting  for  a  definite 


1*  It  has  been  objected  to  me  that  Vergil  does  not  actually  say  that 
Rome  was  not  to  care  for  art,  etc.  That,  however,  is  clearly  Vergil's 
meaning,  and  so  Macaulay  understood  it,  as  he  restates  it  in  the  Prophecy 
of  Capys — although  he  very  wisely  set  that  prophecy  in  a  wilder  and 
more  savage  frame,  thus  making  the  sentiment  more  credible. 

^®  The  best  account  of  the  Ara  Pacis  in  EngUsh  is  probably  that  in 
IVIrs  S.  A.  Strong's  excellent  volume  on  Roman  Sculpture  (London,  1916), 
from  which  by  the  Uberality  of  its  publishers,  Messrs  Duckworth,  my  * 
two  illustrations  are  taken. 


v' 


: 


12 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


13 


well-ordered  civilization,  for  scientific  progress  and  for  artistic 
excellence^®. 

The  Empire,  of  course,  did  better  than  Vergil.  Just  as, 
in  its  religious  growth,  it  passed  out  beyond  the  religious 
ideals  of  the  sixth  Aeneid — so  it  soon  left  behind  also  its  political 
ideals.     What  are  the  main  features  of  the  real  Empire? 

The  most  conspicuous  feature  is  not  perhaps  that  which 
most  mattered.  History  has  been  defined  as  the  Book  of  Kings, 
and  if  any  history  be  that,  the  ordinary  history  of  the  Empire 
is  little  more  than  a  list  of  Emperors'  portraits.  Now,  for 
an  Empire — even  with  the  peculiar  Roman  constitution — you 
must  clearly  have  Emperoi;^.  But  the  actual  working  of  the 
Roman  imperial  machinery  went  on  without  so  very  much 
regard  for  the  rulers.  As  a  whole,  the  Roman  Emperors  were 
not  men  of  genius.  Mommsen,  indeed,  perhaps  exaggerated 
when  he  said — "in  the  long  roll  of  rulers  from  Augustus  to 
Diocletian,  amid  the  crowd  of  worthless,  of  second-rate,  of 
foolish  men,  we  meet  no  real  statesman — at  the  best  only 
an  able  administrator  like  Vespasian  or  a  mediocre  fighter 
like  Trajan'  (Reden,  p.  109).  But  there  is  truth  in  this;  it 
is  rare  to  find  the  character  of  the  Roman  ruler  reacting  forcibly 
on  the  Roman  state.  Good  rulers  like  Hadrian,  no  doubt, 
did  good.  Nero's  follies  produced  scattered  troubles,  the  viler 
follies  of  Commodus,  working  on  a  state  already  smitten  hard 
by  plague  and  by '  external  war,  bore  more  evil  fruit.  But 
the  evils  were  overcome,  the  machinery  of  the  Empire  continued 
to  perform  its  functions,  though  its  nominal  directors  failed 
for  a  while  to  guide  it. 

It  follows  that  if  the  Emperors  did  not  matter,  we  need 
not  assign  much  prominence  among  the  Roman  conceptions 
of  Empire  to  the  constitutional  position  of  the  ruler  or  of  the 
Principate  generally.  Mommsen,  in  one  of  those  addresses 
on  politics  ancient  and  modern,  which  foreign  custom  occasion- 

^*  It  is  improper  that  I  should  here  express  any  opinion  whether 

Germany  is  actually  fighting  for  such  things.     But  that  she  thinks  so  is 

a  practical  fact,  which  wise  men  will  note.     The  fear  that  the  Slavonic 

•  world  would  drag  down  the  German  in  den  Abgrund  ihrer  Unkultur,  as  a 

German  put  it  many  years  ago,  was  almost  one  of  the  causes  of  the  war. 


ally  requires  of  University  Professors,  traced  the  strength  of 
the  Principate  to  a  feature  which  he  found  also  in  the  position 
of  the  Hohenzollern  rulers  of  Germany.  The  Princeps,  he 
alleged,  was  not  a  mere  despot:  he  combined  some  sort  of 
despotism,  or  constitutionalism,  in  any  case  some  supreme 
military  authority,  with  the  idea  of  office,  of  prescribed  duties, 
of  responsibilities — responsibilities,  not  to  a  parliament,  but 
to  his  own  and  his  people's  conscience.  How  far  this  ia^a  true 
view  of  the  position  of  the  King  of  Prussia  and  the  Emperor 
of  Germany,  I  cannot  now  ask.  Everything  depends,  in  such 
a  case,  on  how  the  institution  be  actually  worked.  The  "  servants 
of  the  state,"  such  as  Mommsen  tells  us  the  Hohenzollern 
rulers  are,  may  so  easily  become  its  masters  if  they  wish. 
One  can  see  that  in  the  Roman  Empire  some  rulers  were 
actually  what  we  should  call  "servants  of  the  state,"  spending 
their  whole  activity  in  its  cause — Hadrian,  Pius  and  Marcus 
in  the  second  century,  Claudius,  Aurelian,  Probus  and  Diocletian 
in  the  third.  Other,  also  able  rulers,  were  emphatically,  for 
good  or  evil,  "autocrats"  —  Trajan,  Septimius  Severus, 
Constantine  I.  Others  again  such  as  Alexander  Severus  and 
Gordian  wielded  little  actual  military  authority  at  all. 

Empires  need  not  roll  forward 

If  we  turn  from  personalities  to  the  facts  of  the  Empire 
itself,  we  shall  get  a  rathe-  different  answer  to  our  enquiry 
into  the  Roman  conceptions  of  Empire.  It  seems  to  be  a  modern 
creed  that  Empires  must  unceasingly  grow.  Whether  they 
like  it  or  not,  they  must  roll  forward.  When  an  Empire  becomes 
stationary,  it  declines  (wrote  the  late  Prof.  Cramb,  the  other 
day) ;  when  it  ceases  to  advance,  it  recedes,  and  the  Empire 
which  has  begun  to  recede  is  dead.  That  is  a  natural  belief 
in  this  age,  when  the  more  powerful  empires  of  the  world  have 
all  been  busy  land-grabbing  in  every  continent  for  the  last 
forty  or  fifty  years.  It  might  easily  have  been  the  creed  of 
a  man  who  lived  through  the  Hfetime  of  Horace  (65 — 8  B.C.) 
and  who  in  his  later  middle  life  saw  immense  additions  made 
to  an  Empire  full  of  vigour.    It  was  not  the  creed  of  Augustus 


14 


SOME    ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


15 


sr 


k 


himself,  nor  of  most  of  the  statesmen  of  the  early  Empire.  The 
frontiers  which  Augustus  left,  remained  the  Roman  frontiers 
with  little  change  for  500  years  till  the  Western  Empire 
ultimately  fell.  A  few  additions  were  made ;  Claudius  converted 
some  protectorates  and  began  the  conquest  of  southern  Britain 
— but  that  conquest  hardly  ever  extended  to  the  Highlands  nor 
permanently  to  Ireland.  Vespasian  took  in  a  few  frontier  districts 
which  had  "matured" — (as  the  suburban  builder  says) — on 
the  Rhine  and  the  Danube;  Trajan  seized  Dacia;  Pius, 
Marcus,  Severus,  added  something  here  or  there:  there  was 
even  a  later  advance  in  the  east.  But  the  general  frontiers 
remain  unaltered. 

This  inaction  may  be  in  part  due  to  geography.  The 
Empire,  as  Augustus  left  it,  had  natural  limits  which  it  could 
not  easily  overstep— in  the  west  the  wide  and  shoreless 
Atlantic,  in  the  south  the  impassable  Sahara,  in  the  north 
the  storms  and  snows  of  Russia  and  of  Germany  and  of  the 
Arctic  Circle  beyond ;  even  in  the  east,  deserts  or  mountains 
forbade  much  easy  progress.  But  it  was  less  these  difficulties 
than  his  own  recognition  of  the  real  nature  of  his  Empire 
which  stopped  the  Roman.  His  was,  as  has  been  so  often 
said,  a  Mediterranean  Empire — with  its  capital  Rome  right 
in  its  centre:  when  it  left  the  Mediterranean,  it  left  behind 
its  unity  and  its  own  clear  purpose,  intruding  into  alien 
climates  and  unforeseen  problems.  Its  statesmen  preferred 
to  work  out  their  own  empire  of  Mediterranean  area,  largely 
uncivilized  and  undeveloped  as  it  was  when  Augustus  first 
conquered  much  of  it.  Now  and  again  a  trader  pushed  out 
further — along  the  West  African  coast,  or  across  Hungary 
and  Poland  to  the  amber-treasures  of  Palmnicken^',  or  over 
the  eastern  seas  by  the  aid  of  the  monsoon  to  the  Malabar 
littoral. 

Contrast   with   this    the    strength    of    the    Chinee    under 

1'  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.,  37,  45.  The  Museum  at  Carnuntum  actually 
contains  fragments  of  amber  possibly  brought  by  this  trader  or  successors 
of  his.  According  to  Friedrich  Hirth,  Rome  exported  amber  to  China. 
On  ancient  amber  generally  see  a  careful  article  by  Bliimner  in  "Pauly- 
Wissowa  Realencycl."  (art.  Bernstein). 


the  Han  dynasty  which  began  about  200  B.C.  They  pushed  out  a 
long  arm  2000  miles  westwards  of  Pekin,  and  nearly  1500  miles 
beyond  the  true  Chinese  wall  and  border,  towards  Kashgar 
and  Khotan  and  the  gate  of  the  European  overland  trade 
route.  The  way  was  incredibly  long  and  hard:  most  of  it 
lay  along  a  line  of  small  oases  between  monstrous  deserts 
and  enormous  mountains ;  the  measureless  wastes  of  the  Tarim 
basin  spread  continuously  north  of  it;  and  the  uncHmbed 
summits  of  the  Kuenlun  overhung  it  on  the  south.  Yet  along 
this  narrow  perilous  trail  the  Chinese  laid  hold  on  the  inner- 
most recesses  of  Asia :  they  hold  them  to  this  day.  Such  was 
not  the  ideal  or  the  wish  of  the  Roman.  To  him  (and  not  to 
Tiberius  only)  it  was  natural  to  follow  the  often  cited  precept 
of  Augustus — coercere  intra  terminos  imperium.  No  doubt  there 
were  occasional  bursts  of  forward  policy — as  when  Trajan 
reached  the  Persian  Gulf.  Tacitus,  composing  his  Annals 
in  the  middle  or  towards  the  end  of  Trajan's  conquests, 
somewhat  behttles  the  advice  of  Augustus — yet  he  himself, 
in  darker  days  20  years  before,  amid  the  disasters  of  Domitian's 
wars,  had  been  only  too  ready  to  write  gloomily  (Germ.,  33.  8, 
fata  imperii  urgentia),  of  the  fortune  or  destiny  which  drove  the 
Empire  on,  and  that  tone  seems  more  characteristic  of  the 
Empire  in  general  through  all  its  four  centuries.  The  American 
Professor,  Tenney  Frank,  in  his  most  interesting  survey  of 
Roman  Imperiahsm  under  the  Roman  Repubhc^^,  has  tried  to 
show  that  it  was  also  characteristic  of  the  earher  Roman 
expansion  under  the  Republic — that  even  that  warlike  and 
conquering  state  seldom  fought  and  seldom  annexed  save 
from  motives  of  self-defence.  I  hardly  know  whether  we 
should  argue  that  republican  Rome  grew  despite  herself,  or 
because  she  chose  to  grow:  it  seems  clear,  however,  from 
Frank's  book  that,  of  set  systematic  expansion  extending  over 
large  areas  or  many  generations,  Rome  shows  no  trace  till  the 
wars  of  Caesar  and  of  Pompey,  at  the  very  end  of  all  Republican 
activity.  The  expansion  of  the  Republic  was  in  a  sense 
unconscious :  the  non-expansion  of  the  Empire  was  in  a  sense 
conscious. 

18  See  note  13. 


16 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF   EMPIRE 


SOME   ROMAN   CONCEPTIONS   OF  EMPIRE 


17 


! 


i 


We  may  transfer  to  the  Roman  Empire  the  sentences 
which  Tacitus  wrote  (Genn.^Sb)  of  the  Chauci,  the  East-Frisian 
tribe  which  (if  it  has  left  survivors  at  all  to-day)  has  (as  German 
scholars  tell  us)  perhaps  its  descendants  somewhere  in  modern 
England — it  (he  says)  protected  its  greatness  by  its  moderation, 
free  from  greed,  free  from  lawlessness,  in  quiet  and  seclusion 
it  provoked  no  wars,  devastated  no  lands,  pillaged  no  other 
tribe's  property.  The  great  proof  of  its  character  and  its 
strength  lay  in  this,  that  it  needed  not  to  show  its  strength 
by  doing  wrong. 

We  mav  be  thankful  that  Rome  made  no  effort  to 
expand.  Had  she  grown,  she  would — or  might — have  wasted 
her  strength,  and  squandered  her  manhood  in  difficult  wars: 
had  she  conquered  in  those  wars,  she  would  have  added  to  her 
subjects  tribes  who  would  have  Romanized  slowly  or  not  at 
all:  her  population  would  have  in  the  end  been  less  unified, 
less  Roman.  The  struggle  with  the  migrant  barbarians  of 
Central  Asia,  the  terrible  "kings  that  rose  up  out  of  the 
populous  east,  To  make  their  quarry  of  her"  would  have 
followed  just  as  much,  but  there  would  have  been  a  smaller 
body  of  Roman  culture  to  civilize  at  least  a  portion  of  these 
barbarians  and  to  hand  on  the  torch  of  human  civilization. 

Local  Freedom 

A  second  conception  which  the  Romans  attached  to  Empire 
can  also  be  traced  in  the  Republic.  It  has  been  often  noted 
that  the  statesmen  of  the  Republic  introduced  into  their 
conquests  very  little  direct  control.  They  desired  (one  often 
thinks)  to  be  free  of  the  trouble  of  actual  administration,  and 
they  left  almost  everything  to  the  native  authorities.  After 
conquest  they  left  these  sometimes  as  local  magistrates  in 
city-towns;  sometimes  as  client  princes  in  "protected" 
principalities.  Only  here  and  there  did  the  central  authorities 
intrude,  for  special  reason,  on  the  normal  local  government. 
In  two  provinces,  for  instance,  in  Sicily  and  in  the  N.W. 
region  of  Asia  Minor  which  the  Romans  called  especially  Asia, 
the  Roman  capitalists  saw  a  chance  of  profit  to  themselves 


by  adapting  a  peculiar  native  system  of  taxation;  though 
the  step  was  cruel  and  inhuman  to  the  provincial,  with  the 
aid  of  Gains  Gracchus  they  forced  it  upon  the  Roman  govern- 
ment. In  some  provinces,  again,  the  senate  allowed  a  favoured 
land  speculation  to  its  own  members,  with  extraordinary 
results;  six  senators  (the  elder  Plinyi^  tells  us  in  a  passage 
which  illustrates  equally  well  the  habits  of  the  senate  and 
of  the  Emperor  Nero)  ^ere  lords  of  half  the  province  of  Africa 
proconsularis  (Tunis)  when  Nero  put  them  to  death. 

But,  in  general,  the  Republic  began  unconsciously  and  the 
Empire  consciously  continued  a  system  of  extraordinary  local 
freedom.  For  some  reason,  English  readers  of  Roman  history 
have  failed  to  note  this.  A  little  while  ago,  I  read  in  a  really 
carefully  edited  English  evening  newspaper  (there  is  such  a 
thing)  a  review  of  a  professed  and  indeed  competent  historian, 
who  was  cited  with  hearty  approval..  The  late  Lord 
Beaconsfield— the  reviewer  and  the  historian  combined  to 
say— "with  a  levity  not  unfamiliar  to  him,"  once  ascribed 
"the  phrase  im/perium  ac  libertas''  to  a  Roman  historian.  "Not 
only  did  no  Roman  historian  use  the  phrase— the  conception 
of  imperialism  which  it  embodies  is  false  to  the  Roman  genius- 
no  statesman,  no  Roman  historian,  not  Caesar  nor  Marcus, 
could  have  bracketed  these  words."  Then  the  reviewer  added: 
"The  peoples  subdued  by  Rome  received  justice  from  her,  but 
the  ideal  of  Freedom,  which  secures  for  every  soul  the  power  to 
move  in  the  highest  paths  of  its  being,  is  not  Roman."  Now 
the  peccant  phrase  ''imferimn  et  libertas"  is  taken  (as  is  not 
unknown)  almost  straight  from  Tacitus^o,  and  as  for  the  thing 
itself  there  has  never  been  an  Empire  which  allowed  to  its 
subjects  such  full  local  freedom  as  did  Rome. 

Augustus,  as  Tacitus  observes,  organized  the  chaotic  con- 
quests of  the  Republic  and  his  own  into  an  Empire— an 
organization  with  extraordinary  results,  definite  and  defensible 
frontiers,  with  an  organized  army  and  organized  naval 
squadrons,  with  a  regulated  civil  government  in  Italy  and  in 

Nat.  Hist,  18,  35.    He  does  not  say  that  the  owners  were  senators, 
but  it  is  fairly  obvious. 
20  Tacitus,  Agr.,  3. 


If 


18 


SOME  ROMAN  CONCEPTIONS   OF  EMPIRE 


j.  , 


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the  Dominions,  and  with  real  Unity  and  coherence — cuncta  inter 
se  connexa,  Ann,,  i.  9,  fin.  He  did  not,  however,  so  far  as  we 
know,  introduce  any  absolutely  new  methods  of  local  self- 
government.  Augustus  was  very  cautious  about  new  things 
in  all  directions.  But  he  developed  the  older  order  by  founding 
in  the  provinces,  with  his  time-expired  soldiers,  many  munici- 
palities of  which  the  citizens  were  Roman  and  the  charters 
involved  local  autonomy;  he  elsewhere  accepted  (as  in  Gaul) 
similar  arrangements  for  local  government,  which  seem  to  have 
been  left  by  Caesar — and  thus  turned  what  might  have  become 
merely  transitory  freedom  into  permanent  independence. 

The  dog  that  bit  the  shadow  dropt  the  bone.  The  Empire 
neither  grasped  at  any  shadowy  extension  of  dominion,  nor  did 
it  demand  in  detail  logical  completeness  of  despotic  power. 
Instead,  it  amalgamated  its  natural  dominions  to  itself,  so  that 
they  became  Roman:  if  thereby  it  missed  some  unessentials 
of  Empire,  it  won  solid  loyalty.  Individuals  might  revolt 
against  an  Emperor:  no  province  revolted  against  Rome. 
Listen  to  Claudian  from  Egypt,  writing  about  a.d.  400,  as 
he  apostrophises  Roman  rule,  and  its  liberality:  haec  est  in 
gremium  victos  quae  sola  recepil, 

Alone  she  gathers  to  her  bosom  those 
whom  late  she  vanquished;   citizens,  not  foes, 
she  calls  them  now.     Their  conqueror  they  proclaim — 
mother,  not  mistress.     So  her  general  name 
enfellowships  mankind,  makes  fast,  with  bands 
of  love  devout,  the  far-off  daughter  lands, 
that,  wheresoe'er  we  range,  'tis  all  one  race, — 
debtors  to  her  by  whose  peacemaking  grace 
no  place  is  strange  but  everywhere  a  home, — 
one  world-wide  family  all  akin  with  Rome^i. 

»  Claud.,  de  cons.  Stilich.,  m.  150-160  (I  owe  the  translation  to  Prof. 
Phillimore,  of  Glasgow  University).  The  sentiment  is  probably  borrowed 
from  Aristides  {laud.  Rom.,  p.  265)  who  wrote  in  the  second  century.  See  my 
Romanization  oj  Roman  Britain  (ed.  3,  1915),  pp.  11-13. 


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